The invention relates to an apparatus for making metal powder, with a supply tank for keeping the molten starting material hot and for the controlled dispensing thereof, with a replaceable pouring funnel with outlet opening for the temporary gathering of the melt and the production of a pouring stream with a precisely defined cross section and length, with an atomizing nozzle having an annular slit and disposed concentrically with the opening of the pouring funnel, and with at least one substantially perpendicular fall shaft disposed under the atomizing nozzle for the solidification and collection of the met-al powder, wherein a chamber envelops the supply tank and the pouring funnel is disposed on the fall shaft, and can be separated hermetically from the fall shaft.
An apparatus of this kind is disclosed in German Patent 30 34 677; the pouring funnels are referred to therein as intermediate containers. The pouring funnels are needed for the production of thoroughly constant pouring and atomizing parameters, but on account of their ceramic internal surfaces they are subject to relatively great wear, so that they need to be replaced frequently. Constant pouring and atomizing conditions are necessary especially for the duration of the atomization of the metal of a charge, so that the powder material produced will have the same shape and a narrow range of grain sizes at the beginning and at the end of the atomization. In the known apparatus the pouring funnels can be replaced only after the supply chamber has been flooded and opened, which necessitates lengthy periods of stoppage of the apparatus. That is followed by evacuation periods of considerable length, because the fittings present in the chamber, especially the porous ceramic materials, absorb appreciable amounts of air and water vapor which greatly prolong the evacuation process.
The invention is therefore addressed to the problem of devising an apparatus of the kind described above, in which the pouring funnel is replaceable in a simple manner without exposing the rest of the apparatus to air, and in which a precise positioning of the pouring funnel and atomizing nozzle is made possible.
The solution of the stated problem is achieved in accordance with the invention, in the apparatus described above, by the fact that the chamber containing the supply tank and the pouring funnel has in the area of the pouring funnel a closable lateral opening at which a lock chamber is placed for the introduction of the at least one pouring funnel, that the chamber and the lock chamber have tracks aligning the chamber and the lock chamber with one another and interrupted only by a first closing device, on which a car is disposed which can selectively enter the chamber and be withdrawn completely into the lock chamber and on whose bottom a number of atomizing nozzles corresponding to the number of pouring funnels is fastened, and on this car the pouring funnels can be placed such that an outlet spout underneath the outlet opening can be inserted with guidance concentrically into the annular atomizing nozzle, the fall shaft being provided with a coupling system which, after the positioning of the group of components consisting of pouring funnel and atomizing nozzle over the fall shaft, produces the thoroughly gas-tight connection between fall shaft and atomizing nozzle.